where's the beef?

My first post after a longish break in Blighty is about one of my favourite foodstuffs - beef. I never miss the chance to eat the meat and gorged on cooked cow when back home. Returning to Delhi is a necessary culinary torture I'd rather not have to live through. So the first thing I like to do when I am back is get some cow. This is not easy in north India where they take Hinduism into the kitchen and cow-slaughter can lead to riots.

However you can find the real thing in Delhi, usually tucked away in some shady backstreet. The place I'd currently recommend is a Korean restuarant called Gung, the Palace. Went there last night and the melt-in-my-mouth beef was cooked at my table. The owner, a Korean expat whose mum does the cooking, told me that the fifty percent of the clientele was now Indian. "Now that is India progressing. Last year it was only 10 per cent".

English as she is speaking

I read today that India will overtake the US as the world's biggest English-speaking population in 2010. What will this mean? The answer came in the form of a pamphlet slipped in with my newspapers. its content is reproduced below:

"DOES ENGLISH SOUNDS IMPOSSIBLE TO YOU?? LET'S MAKE IT POSSIBLE!

Hi!

All the 10thees! It is my pleasure to announce that I'm coming back again to get you succeed like genius as we did in the past.
It is an opportunity for both you and me to play English, the language of words to make outstanding performance in your board examinations within the remedial period of just three months. Let's Learn, Practice and Achieve the success."


Anyone who needs help with their English would gain from avoiding this teacher but if you feel the need to "play English" with Madam Nancy then drop me a line and I'll send you her address.

x

Indiaarrgh

Was out in Delhi last night witnessing something very different in the coming class of cosmocrats, that group of people who run the world and line the corridors of the WB, IMF, UN etc. Despite the dust and heat of an incoming summer, all seemed to think their move to India was the right one to make.

These 20somethings talked about the opportunities and the energy of the place in a way that surprised me. India it appeared to them was rich with chances to flex their intellectual and creative muscle in a way that the US etc never offered. Where I saw sloth, they saw pensive refection. Where I saw bland pastiche, they saw innovation.